Daredevil was always the grittiest of the Marvel TV shows. The Defenders from the Netflix series all had their own dark takes on the MCU, but Daredevil’s combination of vigilante justice combined with legal drama allowed it to reach new heights — or rather, depths — of grounded drama. Now, a decade after the first series, Matt Murdock is coming back to streaming and this time it’s darker than ever.
The showrunner for the series is teasing something incredibly gritty, more grounded than even the latest hit “gritty reboot” show: DC’s The Penguin. But will the series be able to live up to all that hype?
In conversation with SFX Magazine, Daredevil: Born Again showrunner Dario Scardapane referenced The Penguin as Born Again’s “direct competition.” “It’s really strange. You work in a vacuum and then something else comes out and you go, ‘Oh, wow,’” he said. “I would say in many ways The Penguin is our direct competition. However, we're even more grounded, even less stylized, even more rooted in the here and now. I loved Penguin. we’re a little faster, meaner, cleaner in our storytelling.”
It’s unclear how a series could be more grounded and less stylized than The Penguin, a series that drew more comparisons to The Sopranos than any legacy Batman media. The trailer was certainly action-packed, far more so than the more scheming Oz Cobb, but that’s only concerning the plot, not the tone.
But that’s not the only gritty superhero crime drama series Scardapane is comparing his series to. Even the Netflix Daredevil series got a shakedown. “The earlier show, at its best, was fantastic,” he said. “At its worst, it was two characters in a room talking about what a hero is. I felt that had been done. I'm not taking swipes. I just didn't want to hear characters grousing about their lot in life. I wanted to see them doing things.”
So if there’s one thing fans can expect in Daredevil: Born Again, it’s characters “doing things.” Scardapane is talking a big game about this series, which is a good omen: someone insecure about a reboot wouldn’t say it’s better than its predecessor. However, if the series fails to reach these ever-heightening expectations, Daredevil may need to be born again... again.
